#annabautista

[neareststar]

still

you are no longer  mine but your hurt  still pierces my heart the same way it did when you were mine  -anna bautista, things i’ve written that you may never read

[neareststar]

you say,  no one has ever done the things you have done  for me  but what about me will you do the things you have never done for anyone-- break yourself apart and pour pour yourself out to me  -anna bautista, things i wish i had said/had done differently 

[neareststar]

leave me  in the woods  amidst leaf and air by brush and bird to breathe, to breathe 

[exquisitelyanna]

outlier

The classroom is divided into groups of six to share answers to questions scribbled on the dry-erase board. They are typical getting-to-know-one-another questions like: What is your favorite color? What is your favorite music to listen to? For the second part of the exercise, we are to split up into pairs in order to introduce the other to the whole class.

When I look at the group assembled before me, I already know I am an outlier. The most popular color choice is blue.

In my tenth grade year in AP Stats, a volunteer went to each table group to ascertain our favorite colors. It was an exercise in deciphering information. The colors to choose from were: red, green, blue, yellow, orange, purple. He approached our table and nodded to me first, asking me to choose from the selected colors.

“Burgundy,” I said, unable to betray my nonconformity. He looked down at his data collection and dotted me on the graph away from the other dots, my classmates.

“You’re an outlier,” he said.

I look at the group now and my answer is still the same and as uncommon as that day before.

My partner, a blonde-haired musical theatre enthusiast remembers my favorite color. She tells the whole class and my professor. It was the most atypical answer. She pauses. 

The professor, a woman always dressed in gray asks her about my favorite music. The girl scrunches her eyebrows, trying to recall, but doesn’t remember. She looks at me, hoping for a hint. She doesn’t remember because I didn’t tell her. We didn’t have time left after the first exercise.

My professor looks to me now with eyebrows raised, suggesting that I tell her and the class.

She is a woman, amused by social norms and social roles. She will be amused by my answer.

“Easy listening,” I tell her. Now her eyes spark in amusement. Her wry smile appears, crinkling the corner of her mouth.

“Easy listening,” she repeats, smiling to the class. “Like the kind you hear while waiting in the elevator?”

I match the amusement in her eyes with my own, a quieter kind and nod my head. I afford a little laugh.

The whole class laughs. The answer isn’t one they’re used to. They’re used to “pop”, “hip hop”, a brave “indie music”, or even braver “country”.

I smile along because I don’t tell them why. Why is the preference to hear something pure and unadulterated by an excess of noise.

I think too much. There are too many voices in my head. Not the crazy kind, just my own. They are like impatient, overexcited children tugging on the hem of their mother’s dress, begging for attention. All these voices are my own. Easy listening is a break in the voices. It refreshes like a cold shower after a hot day in the sun.

[exquisitelyanna]

consistency

I'm not going to pressure myself to write long posts like I usually do. But here's a short and to-the-point post. 

I always admired bloggers who wrote honestly about whatever they were dealing with. One friend, who I followed, formatted her posts as prayers to God. Back then, when God felt like a distant observer, I felt like I had stumbled unto someone's diary. I read her prayers religiously, as if I was a kid happening upon candy. Another friend of mine, always writes whatever troubles him. I can only describe his posts as always striving and hopeful. 

Bloggers like those encourage me. They enable me. 

I hope to do the same for you. 

[exquisitelyanna]

sunday recollections

“The smart ones always have a GPS”, says my taxi driver of unknown Spanish origins. 

We’re back on the road, just after dropping four of my friends back on my alma mater's campus. I had just asked him if he knew the street that I lived on. He assured that of course, he did. He was a local. Usually, my cab drivers wouldn't have a clue. And they lived in the area.

“My daughter,” he continues,“gave me a GPS that speaks to me in English, French, and Spanish.” He points to his glove department, indicating the GPS’s location and demonstrating his intelligence in owning one, especially a GPS fluent in three languages. 

I nod and smile. Usually I don’t engage in conversation with taxi drivers. Not really. Not in NY. They’re too busy, hurtling through traffic with the ability to squeeze into unimaginable minuscule spaces between cars; and I’m too busy, hoping that their driving stunts don’t end in a crash with ambulance sirens not too far away.

But today is Sunday; and I’m more amicable and chatty after church service on Sundays.

He tells me about his daughter, and I let him. It's like paying homage to my mother. I'm certain that she's entertain many of her "bus friends" with stories of me. 

“My daughter’s a smart girl," he tells me, "She has a Ph.D. Teaches in the Bronx. She’s planning on starting a Research Center.”

We stop at a stop sign. “She wanted to get her MD inHarvard, but she chose not to. ‘Dad’, she said, ‘I don’t have much time on my biological clock!’ my taxi driver says.

"’You don’t have a boyfriend,’ I told her,” he tells me, lost in the memory. He looks at me in the dashboard mirror.

 “How is she going to find a boyfriend when she’s so busy?” he says. 

I don’t think I can answer that question for him so I lift my shoulders and palms to shrug.

 “Well,” he concludes, making a left turn at the stop sign, “she teaches then comes back from work to grade papers. If she gets one, it should be somebody from work. 

He stops the car at my house, looking over his seat to say, “She’s 34 so I think she has quite a bit of time, don’t you think?”

 I nod, reassuring him. “Lots of time!” I say, “good luck to your daughter and thank you!”

 I get out of the car, waving bye. He smiles and drives on to his next passenger, somebody who lives the next block away. He sticks his hand out from the car window to wave bye before he finally disappears around the corner. 

As I head inside, I think to myself that my mom passed her innate ability to easily talk to strangers and the strange way they open up to her to me.

In my first year of college, I lived in a high-rise tower on-campus with a public lounge on the very topmost floor with an expansive view of my whole college campus. It was peaceful and quiet. The room only had sofas, tables, and tall windows--too boring a place for stimulation-seeking college students. It was perfect for studying.

One night, I brought my sociology textbooks up there to read up about social inequality in America. However, somebody seemed to have occupied the room. 

No one was present, but hefty books on microbiology, quantum physics, and miscellaneous subjects in science lay open on one of the tables. Among them rested a laptop. 

It was a reckless move to leave something that valuable behind, but I went to sit on the other corner of the room, priding myself in how fortunate this person was that I had walked into this room instead of another, possibly potential thief.

A few moments afterward, a tall, dark-skinned man with a sprouting beard walked into the room. 

He glanced at me, before glancing at his things, more than likely checking to see if everything was still there. He looked back at me with admiration that I was a decent human being.

“I have my own textbooks and laptop over here,” I said in explanation. I had enough reading and hard drive space to be content with my lot.

He sat down in a chair and woke up his idle computer. “If you had stolen my computer,” he said, “I would known the exact location of your whereabouts.” He begins typing away. “This baby’s got a tracker.”

Of course, he was smart, I thought. Anyone studying science needed to have that amount of brain ability. I had assumed that we, two would continue studying by our lonesome until I left to go back to my own room. But he started talking to me about his major, the fact that he was 33 and still studying. And onwards.

“I used to be in the music scene,” he said, gesturing with his hands what seemed to be that he used to mix CDs like a DJ.

I was still in my corner, but he was now sitting at my table in the chair across from me.

“I rapped. Wanted to be like 50 cent,” he said, lifting two fingers to his lips as if smoking. “That was the dream.” I nodded, sitting quietly. 

“But it was a fucked up scene,” he said, casting his eyes down, shaking his head. “Got real messed up. My family isn't all that great. My uncle’s in jail. I’m not even sure where my momma lives. Hell, nah. I had to get up and leave,” he said, looking at his textbooks. 

He looked at me, suddenly aware how much time had past. I had a Samsung flip phone with a keyboard. I checked the time on the screen. It had been about two hours. 

“Well darn,” he said, “kid, you’re a freshman, right?” 

I nod.

“I don’t know why I told you all this, but it’s late. I’m sure you have somewhere to go to in the morning,” he said, walking to his backpack.

 “But I have something that helps me get everything I need during lectures,” he said, taking out a camcorder. 

“It doesn’t have batteries, but record anything on it. You can use it for notes later.” 

I thought best to leave then. I gathered up everything and took the camcorder in his hand.

I felt obliged to say, “I’m not sure if I’ll see you around, but thanks for sharing. Hope you do well with everything.” 

And I left with a camcorder and an autobiography. I did know what to do with either, so I stuffed the camcorder in my dresser drawer (It was useless without three AAA batteries) and I saved his story for three years and six months until its debut on this blog. 

In 2007-2011, my mom became friends with many a stranger on Bus 62. My family only had one working car then. The Honda Odyssey worked to take my younger brother, Chris and me to our respective high schools. In order to ensure she got to work, she took the bus, a 63-minute long commute. 

She always told me over the dinner table about the new bus people she talked to that day. Sometimes, they were crazy. 

"He sat there, yelling at nobody," she told me over one night's meal of beef steak. "I sat on the farthest seat away from him," she assured me. 

Sometimes, her stories were longer and richer in detail. She told me what her bus friends did for a living, the name of their children, their alma maters, their favorite foods. She could have written biographical records on each person.

I was young and naive and just like every other teen, socially awkward and inept in dealing with strangers. I asked her, “How come all these people tell you all these things?” I said. “Because, really,” I said, “it’s way too much information from a stranger.” 

She was watching Family Feud on the tiny television set that Dad had set up in the kitchen. 

“Well, people like talking to themselves,” she said, glancing away from John O'Hurley for a moment , “if you give them an ear that's willing to hear.”

[exquisitelyanna]

three pennies

When I was too young to attend school, I attended a daycare in Los Angeles called Gladys’. Gladys was the name of the woman who hosted a daycare program. It was in a one-story rectangular house with a white iron fence. Her backyard held a small playground with swings, a sand pit, and a monkey gym. Most of the kids played there during their stay. I preferred Gladys’ small bathroom next to her living room. It was a 8’ x 5’ bath with black and white vinyl floor tiles. I cried on that floor for hours until those colors swam into my eyes and everything blurred to gray. I did this everyday for some months. I got dropped off. I ran to the bathroom. I spilled everything that was inside me. I was picked up.

 I could have only imagined how Gladys dreaded to see my tear-stained face. Once, she tried to entice me out with a box of Oreos. I grabbed some, and then resumed my place next to the bathroom sink, nibbling on Oreos and sniffling. Next, she sent in an older kid to befriend me. I played patty cake with her until she wanted to play on the swings. Sometimes, and it’d be a good day, she’d leave me alone to my noisy pity party. She’d play with the toddlers in the sand box, her khakis rolled up to avoid getting them dirty. I’d relish these times. I could cry myself, tired and sleep until I was picked up again.

 There was one day when I didn’t have any tears left. I sat next to the toilet, quiet. Gladys felt it safe to come into the bathroom and carry me out in her arms. We moved past the living room. It was color coordinated grey. There were grey suede couches, grey throw pillows, grey abstract paintings. Everything was grey except for Divino Niño on the mantelpiece.

 We stepped into her backyard. Kids mulled about, talking, sitting on benches, and sharing each other’s toys. I frowned.

 Gladys looked at the unhappy little girl in her arms and sighed. “Tell me, Anna,” Gladys said. “What do you want to do?”

 I thought, I’d rather watch Disney movies at home with my pants off. I’d rather watch Pocahontas and eat lots of candy. Dad had a sweet tooth so he’d buy loads of candy. He used to have them in his bedroom on his dresser. But as soon as Chris started having cavities, Mom made Dad hide his stash in the house somewhere. I hunted for them like a pirate, and they were my pirate’s booty to take. Soon, I discovered most of the candy was hidden in containers packaged for something else. My favorite candy was the artificially flavored fruit taffy. They could be found in a blue Royal Dansk cookies tin in the kitchen cabinet next to the blender.

 Gladys readjusted me in her arms and I wiggled a bit so I could reach into my pants pocket. I fisted three pennies and showed them to her. “I want to go shopping,” I said. I thought that it’d buy some candy since everything good was at home, and home was so far away.

 She did the worst thing that you could possibly do to a three year old. She laughed, her whole body shaking with tears pooling at her eyes.

 She shook her head and said a simple no. The tears that had deserted me earlier came flooding into my eyes. And I cried like I had not cried before, not in those months before, not on her bathroom floor, but unassailing, uncontrollably in her arms. I didn’t stop until Dad came at 5pm and took my hand and hushed me.

 I never saw Gladys again. That night, Mom asked me why I had cried so hard that day. I answered that I disliked Gladys so much and I hated her house and I hated her bathroom and Why couldn’t I stay at home and Just watch TV and keep quiet because I know Dad hates noise and I’d be good I swear. I’d sleep and eat when I have to and not bother anybody. Just don’t take me there anymore. Mom had let me rant then helped me brush my teeth and tucked me into bed. Thankfully, Mom had called my grandma from the Philippines to help with her kids a few months ago. It was only a few days until my Mama landed in California.

 Mama had grey-flecked hair, wore long dresses that trailed between her sandalyas, and had the air that could calm any kind of storm. It wasn’t long until my home dreams became a reality. She’d pop in a Disney movie into the VCR, and I’d watch only in my shirt and in my briefs, just inches from the screen until I was prodded to move farther back, unless I ruin my eyes and eat candy, sometimes when Mama would treat me and sleep when it came time to the afternoon and wait until the night when I’d curl next to my grandma and make fun of her first name Martha because it sounded similar to eye in Tagalog.

[exquisitelyanna]

self-awareness: a story about progress

When I was fourteen, I was in a relationship with my first love. He was tall, good at basketball, and aspiring to be a journalist. We talked on the phone every night. One night, he spoke about his day and revealed something personal about his family life. I replied nondescriptly back. And then he stated something about me that I never quite forgot: I never talked about my feelings. I’m not sure what my response was, but afterwards I remember lying down on my bed in my dimly-lit bedroom, trying to figure how I felt. I interrogated myself: Did I feel angry? Bored? Annoyed? I continued to go through the spectrum of feelings, trying to match whatever I felt inside. After quite some time, I was unable to answer something so simple. My feelings remained undecipherable to me, all blending into one another in my unconsciousness.

That moment I had discovered that I was missing out on something entirely essential in my being. That moment calls out to me when people mention how very sensitive and self-aware I am. In the days, months, and years ahead since that moment, I took inventory of my feelings, trying to map an unknown internal and emotional world. In time, when a thunderstorm of feelings enfolded me, I was able to pick up what I felt. Further along, I began to pick up on how others felt. Unawares, I was practicing mindfulness—a practice of observing the sensations in my physical and emotional body.

So why am I telling you this? It reminds me of how my life is continually a work in progress. My artistic style is in progress. My career is in progress. My mind is a work in progress. A few months ago, I felt hopeless, fearful, and overwhelmed about where I was in my journey.  Just like how I consistently remind myself, I’d like to remind you that you’re in a good place; and we all start somewhere.